All Episodes
Previous Next
April 30, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
28:50
COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Why is the US at War with Yemen?
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, May 1st, 2025.
Our dear friend whom we missed last week, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, joins us now.
Colonel, it's great to see you.
Welcome back to this microphone and camera, and thank you very much for joining us.
Thank you for having me, and let me say that next time I'll wear a tie.
Oh, you'd be, you're at home.
You'd be 110% yourself.
The subject I want to reach with you is actually one we were mentioning before we started, the U.S. at war with Yemen.
But before we get there, if you don't mind some other questions, Colonel, the United States is a co-belligerent against Russia.
The president has surrounded himself with neocons who don't want the war to end.
He has also surrounded himself...
With American firsters who want the war to end.
He is negotiating directly with the president of Russia.
Why a mineral deal with security guarantees in Ukraine at a moment like this?
First, let me say that he just got rid of one of the impediments, Waltz.
Right.
I think this is another effort, as asymmetric and even idiotic as it may seem, but maybe there's some rhyme to the reason here, to better bring Zelensky into the crowd and look at least like he is concerned about Ukraine and wants to have economic relations with Ukraine.
After all, it is still...
Very close to, if not, the number one economy in the world.
He's doing everything he can to change that, as is China.
But I think it's fair to say that he's looking for something positive to hand to Zelensky, and more importantly to Ukraine, because I don't think Zelensky is very long-lived.
Well, Colonel, I mean, Zelensky is probably a puppet of the ultra-nationalists.
Please correct me if you have a different view.
He is probably not free to concede Crimea and the four obelists.
The Americans don't even know where these minerals are.
Where are we going with this?
I think we know a little bit more than you might be hinting at there, because we've had people on the ground there since 2002.
Indeed, we've had people there since I was chief of staff to Colin Powell, and we put them there.
So this has been going on for a long time.
We have more or less mapped Ukraine from north to southeast to west all over the place.
We know what's there.
We know what is valuable that's there.
We know all about the nuclear reactors.
We know a great deal about Ukraine.
Okay, I stand corrected, but address, if you will, Zelensky's status as a puppet of ultra-nationalists.
I don't want to fight this war to the death of the last Ukrainian male.
That's a problem for him.
I don't think he's empathetic with them, or even sympathetic with them, but I think he is afraid of them.
And I think they, of all the elements in Ukraine that might assassinate him at the drop of a pen, are that element.
So he's got to be concerned about them.
At the same time, as I said, I don't think he is sympathetic with them.
Go back to his early days when I think he was probably closer to the truth about his own personal feelings when he was talking, this, that, and the other thing, including when he promised not to go to war with Russia to get elected.
You see a little bit more of the true Zelensky.
He's metamorphosed, if you will, because he's had to in the course of this conflict.
And you're right, this is the people most apt to take him out.
Is this mineral deal...
Well, first of all, is it legal?
According to the Russians, it's not, because he's not the head of state.
He's just a holdover.
And it may very well be rejected once there is a valid head of state.
Is this mineral deal to be secured by the United States?
Because if it is, you know what that means.
Boots on the ground.
Well, I'm assuming...
That Zelensky is smart enough to pass this through what purports to be his legislature and to get more buy-in to it, approval of it, if you will, than just him.
If that's not the case, then I take everything I said back.
I don't think it's going to be an effective agreement at all in terms of ensuring that people think Ukraine has a future, and particularly a future with the empire.
Is it your understanding, Colonel McGregor says yes, Colonel Schaefer says no, is it your understanding that there is some sort of a security guarantee with this deal?
No.
I have to join that crowd.
I don't think there's any security guarantee whatsoever, unspoken or spoken.
Then where is this going to go?
Where are the minerals?
Are they in the oblasts that are indubitably Russian?
My understanding at the time that I was cognizant with some of this with regard to Ukraine is that they are predominantly in the western sections, not the eastern sections.
There are lots of resources in the eastern sections.
But those that we were looking at at the time, and indeed they might not be the ones we're looking at now, but at the time, because this changes really fast.
In fact, I keep saying, you know, what you have today that is a critical mineral tomorrow may be just mud.
Right.
Because that's how fast technology is evolving.
So all this investment in these critical minerals is really not all that smart, unless you have a Ouija glass or something that's telling you, yeah, those cell phones will be here for 30 years.
But there is...
A substantial amount of resources in that portion of Ukraine, which you might call the rump portion, but it's really not.
I mean, if you're just looking at divesting yourself of those sections that Russia has made very clear that it is going to have, you've still got a lot of Ukraine left.
Why would the Americans think that President Putin would go along with this?
Well, I don't think they do.
But I think that if you're trading, horse trading, if you will, with Sergey Lavrov and Vladimir Putin, you need a little material to put on the table.
And maybe this is something that might ultimately not be a showstopper for Putin if it comes down to it being the only thing left.
And therefore, we gain something.
Here's one of those horse traders, Colonel, General Kellogg.
Still pushing the nonsense of NATO subdividing the country.
Yesterday, I was on with my former colleague and friend, Martha McCallum at Fox, saying, oh, Zelensky's agreed to 22 of our points.
I'll let you comment.
Chris?
Out of London last week, where we sat down with the Ukrainian team, with the Europeans as well, and we had 22 concrete terms that they've agreed to.
What they want to, at the very first, and what they have, is a very comprehensive and permanent ceasefire that leads to a peace treaty.
When I mean comprehensive sea, air, land, infrastructure, for at least 30 days.
Why is 30 days important?
Because it can build to a permanent peace initiative.
And the reason why 30 days is important, it stops the killing.
That's what President Trump wants to do.
Is this not a non-starter with the Russians?
We know it is.
I suspect it is, because what Putin will think it is, with every reason to think so, is another opportunity and interlude for Ukraine to gain more arms and more money and get ready to go again.
That's what he's going to think it is.
Here's exactly what Foreign Minister Lavrov said two days ago.
Cut number six.
If you want a ceasefire just to continue supplying arms to Ukraine, so what is your purpose?
You know what Kaya Kalas and what's his name, Mark Rutte, said about the ceasefire?
The NATO Secretary General and the European Union.
They bluntly stated that they can support only the deal which at the end of the day will make Ukraine stronger, would make Ukraine a victor.
So if this is the purpose of the ceasefire, I don't think this is what President Trump wants.
This is what Europeans, together with Zelensky, want to make out of President Trump's initiative.
There you have it.
As usual, Lavrov is spot on.
Right, right.
I mean, Lavrov is really the most highly regarded diplomat on the planet.
I think you'll probably agree with me.
Was he the foreign minister when Colin Powell was the Secretary of State?
As I recall, he was their ambassador to Washington and a very competent one.
Right.
I know he was their ambassador to UN for a while.
He and Colin talked almost every day.
In fact, they got into a little brouhaha.
Joske Fischer in Germany because Powell was trying to keep the German-American relationship together when Bush had told Schroeder to go F-U-C-K himself.
They talked on the cell phone every day, and Tennant was angry with Powell.
NSA had intercepts of Powell and Lavrov talking on the cell phone, and Powell said, "You're taping me?
What the hell are you doing, George?"
But every day, you know, virtually, that's the way he and Lavrov got along.
Right, right.
Why would Donald Trump dispatch General Kellogg?
Why make a proposal that defies the Russians, that they wouldn't even consider seriously?
I would imagine that the general is either considered to be a non-entity or a joke in the Kremlin.
I think that's probably the case.
I see this as the inexpert way that Trump, I have to assume it's Trump, maybe it's Waltz, but I think it's Trump, is trying to orchestrate a very, very incompetent cabinet in order to use it and even use its incompetence to appear to be or to present a picture of pressure.
Look at what Waltz was saying about, between the first meeting in Muscat and the second meeting in Muscat, what Whitcoff had done with the Iranians.
Waltz was putting out the word that Whitcoff had strayed 10 miles from the road map, so to speak, and was telling them things that were untrue, like they could keep their ballistic missiles, they could do this and do that with their 3.7% uranium and such.
And Whitcoff was telling them what Trump had told him the negotiating position was.
And Waltz was trying to throw him off.
Or was Waltz obeying Trump to try and make it look as if there were two schools and if the Iranians didn't cooperate with Wythkoff, he'd turn the other school loose?
I don't know.
It's very incompetent, very amateurish.
Well, it's certainly amateurish compared to the person we just saw, Sergey Lavrov.
I mean, I can't imagine the Russians...
Or the Chinese or even the British or the French speaking with the diametrically opposed tongues like this.
I don't know if there's anything to do with Mike Waltz's firing or if he was fired over the signal chat or what it could be.
And I don't know if he's going to be replaced by a neocon or not.
I guarantee you this, Colonel, he'll be replaced by a Zionist.
We know that, don't we?
Sad, sad, sad to say, but I think you're correct.
Right.
Right.
Colonel, what has been gained by the bombings in Yemen from the perspective of the United States of America?
More massive deterioration of our reputation, especially our reputation for humanitarian and other types of world actions that build our image in that respect.
I was just amazed to see the Russian airplanes flying over Bandar Abbas and putting out or trying to put out the fires, no doubt started by Israel, that were consuming that port facility.
And I thought to myself, back to the BAM.
Earthquake in Iran in 2006 when Colin Powell called George W. Bush and said, "We need to," and Bush was way ahead of him.
He essentially said, "They're already going, Colin.
I've already ordered their dispatch, and I'm telling you about it right now."
Firefighters, search dog teams, whole fire departments actually from all over the United States went to BAM, where 30,000 Iranians plus died in this earthquake.
That's the image the United States gives off.
Even if you're our enemy, we're going to help you in trouble.
Well, imagine how I feel watching these Russian planes flying over Bandar Abbas, putting water and chemicals on this fire that Israel started.
They're the image of humanitarian assistance now.
They're the image of international law.
They're the image of helping even your enemies now.
Colonel, you are the first person that I've heard say that Israel more likely than not started.
But you're talking about the explosion of a chemical plant at a port in Iran, injured about 500 people and killed about 70 and destroyed millions in fuel.
Yep.
There's no doubt in my military mind Israel did that.
No doubt.
Will there be a military response, Colonel Wilkerson?
We'll see.
I think they're saving that.
I think they're saving that for the moment of decision as to whether or not we do it to them.
And then we are going to pay dearly.
And Israel is going to be destroyed.
Larry Johnson, our colleague, has done the research and calculated that we have spent over $500 million on drones and missiles.
Did I miss something, or did the Congress of the United States declare war on Yemen, of all places?
I don't think they did.
An Operation Prosperity Guardian is anything but.
It ought to be called Operation Killing Innocent Civilians, because that's what we're doing, and we're doing it religiously and consistently.
And yet Pete Hegseth signals, you know, that everything is copacetic and by God, Iran, you see what we can do.
You know what we can do and we're coming after you next.
This just happened.
Well, if I were Iran, I'd say, oh, yeah, I do see what you can do.
You can kill innocent men and women in Yemen.
You haven't conquered anything in Yemen.
Oh, by the way, the IDF hasn't conquered Hamas yet either.
Interesting thing there.
Before we get to the IDF and Hamas, here's the back and forth between Professor Miranda at the University of Tehran and the very childish, I'm sorry to say, Secretary of Defense of the United States, Chris, the full screens.
Hexeth to Iran.
We see your lethal, in caps, support to the Houthis.
We know exactly what you are doing.
You know very well what the U.S. military is capable of, and you were warned.
You will pay the consequence, in caps, at the time and place of our choosing, to which the professor says, we see your lethal, in caps, support for the Zionists, the child killers, the rapists.
We know exactly what you are doing.
You know very well what the resistance is capable of, and you were warned.
You will be remembered as an accomplice to the hashtag Gaza Holocaust.
What do you think of the Secretary of Defense posting something like that on his X account?
I can't imagine any of his predecessors having done that, but you know them better than I do.
I can't either.
I will say this.
Hegseth in that and some other things he's done is living up to what I...
Sadly, thought his image would lead him to.
I think he's showing that right now.
He's showing his amateur hour status.
He's showing his lack of credentials for the position he's in.
And he's showing his inability to couch his language in the kind of language a cabinet officer of the Empire should use.
He just, he simply doesn't.
I don't know what he's supposed to be doing or how he's supposed to be doing it.
And that's really dangerous.
And it characterizes more than just Hegseth.
Rubio has the same problem.
He's a little more sedate about it, but he has the same problem.
He has a tendency to make statements that secretaries of state should never make.
Reminds me of Hillary Clinton when she came, when she said he came, we came, we saw, and he died with regard to Gaddafi, which was a rehearsed Statement, I'm sure.
That woman had rehearsed that statement.
She was going to close her remarks with that statement.
Those were horrible remarks for a second.
With respect to Hegseth, your colleague, Colonel McGregor, says, you know, you appoint a clown, you get a circus.
But this is a very dangerous circus.
This is the defense department.
And now, have you seen the new budget?
The Republicans want to add another $150 billion, which takes it over a trillion.
Colonel, do we need to spend a trillion dollars when the Chinese, the Russians, the British, the French, the Germans, the Iranians combined don't spend a trillion?
It's worse, Judge.
We just parsed the entire budget.
And if you take the percentage of interest payments on our debt, a trillion dollars plus a year now, that are attributable to national security expenditures, and you take the entire national security apparatus and plug all that in,
it's two trillion dollars.
Two trillion dollars.
Colonel, how did an $80 million fighter jet fall off of?
You can't say this with a straight face.
Fall off of an American aircraft carrier in the Middle East.
If you take history as a guide and look at all the times that similar things have happened, particularly when you're maneuvering in combat, it's not all that odd.
The captain had a chance to evaluate, I'm sure, that was maybe four or five seconds.
The CIC, the Combat Information Center, was telling him, you've got an inbound, we don't know what it is, or whatever.
And he knew that if he didn't take evasive action, it might hit, and he didn't know what it was going to be when it hit.
And so he took that evasive action, and on a carrier, that's really a hard turn, because it'll turn on a dime, even though it's huge.
And that forced the tractor and the plane to fall over.
Now, those kinds of things happen in wartime all the time.
Aren't they secured on the deck?
Not necessarily.
If they were moving it at the time and he hauled over real hard to starboard or to the other way, you don't have time to announce on the PA that you're doing that.
You're trying to do that, but it's not timely.
It takes effect, and the people who are moving the airplane, manning the tractor or whatever, they don't have a chance to anchor it and stop, so over it goes.
I can't tell you how many times...
You can lose the personnel that way.
Absolutely, and we did.
In Vietnam, off Vietnam, in operations, we lost people overboard, and in World War II, we lost a number of people overboard.
People forget.
Judge, we had some, counting the baby carriers, we had almost 100 carriers in World War II.
And we had 30 or 40 really big carriers.
So when you're in combat, you accept a certain amount of that.
Now, here's the issue for me.
This shouldn't be combat.
This is not what we should be doing.
It's utterly stupid from a naval commander's point of view.
And believe me, I've been there and listened to them rail about it, and I understand why they do, to confine a carrier to waters like the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf.
It's almost an invitation.
Why is that carrier, which I think is named the Harry S. Truman, correct me if I'm wrong, why is it there?
Is that the point from which the jets that are killing civilians in Yemen take off?
Yes.
That's the big issue.
That's the big issue.
Now, you could say they could go south of Hodeidah, the port of Hodeidah, and do the same thing.
But they're looking at the possibility of other things happening if they overfly that territory.
In this situation, they are presenting the image of protecting the Red Sea as a transit point.
That's the image they want to put off.
But they're not doing it.
I asked the other day because an individual said on a podcast, an individual said, well, you know, there haven't been any commercial hits.
In the Red Sea for four months.
He was implying that this task force was achieving its mission.
And I said, "Well, you know, I want to check."
So I went and checked, a little preliminary check, and I saw that there haven't been any partial ships going through there because people won't insure.
Lloyd's, for example, won't insure.
And shippers have other routes.
It's a little bit more costly, but with these terrorists perturbating everything in the world right now anyway, it's not all that much more costly.
There are other ways to go.
So that's no reason to say that we've been successful, that there are no commercial ships there.
There are no commercial ships there because we haven't been successful.
This is just breaking.
I don't know if you know this person, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander General Sir Richard Sheriff.
S-H-I-R-R-E-F-F.
I'm going to guess he's British because of the Sir Richard.
He's just made a quite damning statement.
America can't be trusted.
European allies must team up with Canada and form a new NATO.
After everything that Trump, Hegseth, and Vance have said, America is just not in the room.
That's a pretty accurate statement in my view, and I do know of him because he's been involved in a couple of things that I've been involved in.
Pretty solid guy, actually.
That's a pretty powerful statement to be making in the light of what his prime minister has been saying.
But maybe his prime minister may have said, go ahead.
Yeah, I notice it says former.
Now, he may still be an active-duty general, in which case I can't imagine he said this without the consent of his superiors.
I think he's retired, yeah.
Okay, okay.
Can Trump negotiate peace in Ukraine, or does he have no cards to play, and Putin's not going to back down on anything, and Zelensky's never going to agree to give away the 4-0 blast in Crimea?
Let's just get down to brass tacks.
If Trump is serious, yes, but how can he be serious?
He's lying all over the place.
I had nothing to do to this war.
This is Joe Biden's war.
Oh, you were president for four years during a major buildup for what Putin launched the special military operation to stop.
You were president.
Do you forget that, Mr. Trump?
And now he said he wants to stop it.
Well, okay, stop it.
It's really easy to stop it.
When you come down to the brass tacks.
You stop all money.
You stop all weapons.
You bring the hammer down on your European allies to get them to do as much as they can to stop.
And if they don't stop, you punish them for it.
And then you go to Putin and you tell him what you've done and you say, let's get this thing over with and let's start working on a new security architecture.
Period.
Hallelujah, Colonel.
I don't know that this administration is going to do that.
I don't know if it's the president's...
Personality, intellect, or just the people around him.
I just don't see that happening.
I mean, what you said is so sensible.
Everybody that comes on this show agrees with what you just said.
You articulated it in such a forceful and compelling way.
Do you think Donald Trump will get there?
I don't.
I really don't.
And I'm very sad to say that.
I don't.
I think Whitcoff could get him there.
I think he's a solid character.
The more I see of him on three different venues, the more I see and hear about him, the more I think he's a solid character.
But I don't think his president is.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, thank you, my dear friend.
It's always a pleasure to chat with you, whether I rattle you up or whether you're calm and collected.
Let me give you another thing that's got me really irritated.
Does it have to do with fishing and streams?
No, it should irritate you too, Judge.
This is Constitution-based, this anti-Christian task force that he's set up.
I've got people calling me from all across the country who are genuine Christians, that is to say they believe in Jesus Christ and the Sermon on the Mount and helping your friends and your enemies and so forth.
These people are witch hunters.
They're violating the Constitution, in my view.
I agree with you.
Arresting a judge because she told a defendant which door to go out of her courtroom, threatening to suspend habeas corpus, these are very, very, very dangerous times.
Probably the most dangerous thing this president is doing right now.
Before we came on air, just about 15 minutes or so before we came on air, a federal judge in Brownsville, Texas, ruled that Venezuela is not an enemy of the United States.
We are not at war with Venezuela, and therefore the use of the Alien Enemy Act by the President of the United States is unconstitutional, and he enjoined the President from using it.
This judge was appointed to the bench by Donald Trump.
Donald Trump.
Well, if this operation against Yemen, Judge, is any guide, watch out.
We'll start a war with Venezuela.
Unbelievable.
Colonel, thank you, sir.
God love you.
All the best.
Welcome back to the fold.
We'll see you next week.
Thank you.
Take care.
Great.
A great man.
I love him when he's cantankerous and when he's serious.
Coming up at 3 o 'clock today, another great man.
▲
Export Selection